“We stand for active ideological struggle because it is the weapon for
ensuring unity within the Party and the revolutionary organizations in the interest of our
fight. Every Communist and revolutionary should take up this weapon.
“But liberalism rejects ideological
struggle and stands for unprincipled peace, thus giving rise to a decadent, Philistine
attitude and bringing about political degeneration in certain units and individuals in the
Party and the revolutionary organizations.
“Liberalism manifests itself in various
ways.
“To let things slide for the sake of
peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled
argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend,
a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead
of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the
organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.
“To indulge in irresponsible criticism
in private instead of actively putting forward one’s suggestions to the organization. To say
nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a
meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective
life but to follow one’s own inclination. This is a second type.
“To let things drift if they do not
affect one personally; to say as little as possible while knowing perfectly well what is
wrong, to be worldly wise and play safe and seek only to avoid blame. This is a third type.
“Not to obey orders but to give pride
of place to one’s own opinions. To demand special consideration from the organization but to
reject its discipline. This is a fourth type.
“To indulge in personal attacks, pick
quarrels, vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and
struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done
properly. This is a fifth type.
“To hear incorrect views without rebutting
them and even to hear counter-revolutionary remarks without reporting them, but instead to take
them calmly as if nothing had happened. This is a sixth type.
“To be among the masses and fail to conduct
propaganda and agitation or speak at meetings or conduct investigations and inquiries among them,
and instead to be indifferent to them and show no concern for their well-being, forgetting that
one is a Communist and behaving as if one were an ordinary non-Communist. This is a seventh
type.
“To see someone harming the interests of
the masses and yet not feel indignant, or dissuade or stop him or reason with him, but to allow
him to continue. This is an eighth type.
“To work half-heartedly without a definite
plan or direction; to work perfunctorily and muddle along—‘So long as one remains a monk, one
goes on tolling the bell.’ This is a ninth type.
“To regard oneself as having rendered great
service to the revolution, to pride oneself on being a veteran, to disdain minor assignments
while being quite unequal to major tasks, to be slipshod in work and slack in study. This is a
tenth type.
“To be aware of one’s own mistakes and yet
make no attempt to correct them, taking a liberal attitude towards oneself. This is an eleventh
type.
“We could name more. But these eleven are
the principal types.
“They are all manifestations of liberalism.
“Liberalism is extremely harmful in a
revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes
apathy and creates dissension. It robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organization and strict
discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the Party organizations
from the masses which the Party leads. It is an extremely bad tendency.
“Liberalism stems from petty-bourgeois
selfishness, it places personal interests first and the interests of the revolution second, and
this gives rise to ideological, political and organizational liberalism.
“People who are liberals look upon the
principles of Marxism as abstract dogma. They approve of Marxism, but are not prepared to practice
it or to practice it in full; they are not prepared to replace their liberalism by Marxism. These
people have their Marxism, but they have their liberalism as well—they talk Marxism but practice
liberalism; they apply Marxism to others but liberalism to themselves. They keep both kinds of
goods in stock and find a use for each. This is how the minds of certain people work.
“Liberalism is a manifestation of opportunism
and conflicts fundamentally with Marxism. It is negative and objectively has the effect of helping
the enemy; that is why the enemy welcomes its preservation in our midst. Such being its nature,
there should be no place for it in the ranks of the revolution.
“We must use Marxism, which is positive in
spirit, to overcome liberalism, which is negative. A Communist should have largeness of mind and
he should be staunch and active, looking upon the interests of the revolution as his very life and
subordinating his personal interests to those of the revolution; always and everywhere he should
adhere to principle and wage a tireless struggle against all incorrect ideas and actions, so as to
consolidate the collective life of the Party and strengthen the ties between the Party and the
masses; he should be more concerned about the Party and the masses than about any private person,
and more concerned about others than about himself. Only thus can he be considered a Communist.
“All loyal, honest, active and upright
Communists must unite to oppose the liberal tendencies shown by certain people among us, and set
them on the right path. This is one of the tasks on our ideological front.”
—Mao, “Combat Liberalism” (complete text),
Sept. 7, 1937, MSW 2:31-33, also online elsewhere including:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_03.htm

COMMITTEES OF CORRESPONDENCE FOR DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM
The Committees of Correspondence is a social-democratic
(i.e., revisionist and non-revolutionary) organization, originally organized within the
revisionist Communist Party USA as a pro-Gorbachev, anti-Gus Hall faction,
and opposed to what was called “Leninism”
in the CPUSA milieu. They were led by Gil Green and included many prominent members and close
associates of the CPUSA, such as Herbert Aptheker,
Angela Davis and the folk singer Pete Seeger. In 1991, at
the time that Soviet social-imperialism was collapsing,
they split off from the CPUSA to form an independent organization. Their name (appropriately)
comes from the committees organized by the governments of the American states during the
American bourgeois revolution for the purpose of promoting coordinated action against
Britain. In the year 2000 they added the phrase “for Democracy and Socialism” to their name,
which is ridiculous since they have no idea what either genuine democracy or genuine socialism
even are! They are sometimes referred to by their initials as CCDS, and allow dual membership
with the reformist so-called Socialist Party USA.

COMMUNISM
1. Communist society.
2. A social ideal and theory of society in which there are no social classes.
3. [In bourgeois usage:] Any government or political movement which is at least vaguely
or nominally influenced by Marx, Lenin or Mao Zedong, regardless of its real nature.

“The Communist International, that is, the Third International, was a
united international body of the world’s Communist Parties and communist organizations.
After the outbreak of World War I the revisionists who had usurpted the leadership of
the Second International were further unmasked. In unity with the revolutionary Leftists
of various countries, Lenin waged an unrelenting struggle against these types. On March
2, 1919, under his leadership, the First Congress of the Communist International was
held in Moscow, at which the founding of the Third International was officially
announced. In the 24 years from its founding to its dissolution, the Third International
defended Marxism-Leninism and helped the advanced elements of the working class in all
lands to organize revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Parties. It supported the Soviet Union,
the world’s first socialist state, lent assistance to the liberation movements of the
oppressed nations in the East, and carried on an international struggle against fascism.
During World War II, in view of the fact that the growing complexity of the changes
taking place both in various countries and in the international arena had made it
impossible for the existing organizational form to answer the needs of the new situation,
the Communist International, with the unanimous approval of the Communist Parties of all
lands, announced on June 10, 1943 its official dissolution.” —Reference note, Peking
Review, #47, Nov. 18, 1977, p. 26.
[Whether it was actually correct
to dissolve the Comintern in 1943 is a contentious issue, as are many questions about
how the organization actually operated, such as its complete domination by Stalin, and
so forth. —S.H.]

“The League was organized and guided by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,
who, on instructions from the League, wrote its programme—the Manifesto of the
Communist Party. The Communist League set itself the aim of overthrowing the
bourgeoisie, destroying the old bourgeois society founded on the antagonism of classes
and establishing a new society without classes and without private property. The Communist
League played an important historical role as a school for proletarian revolutionaries
and as the embryo of the proletarian party; it was the predecessor of the International
Working Men’s Association (the First International). It existed until November 1852, its
most prominent members later playing a leading role in the First International.” —Note
7 to Lenin, Selected Works, vol. I, (Moscow: 1967).

“At the beginning of 1847, Marx and Engels joined the League of the
Just and took part in its reorganization. The first congress of this league took place
in London and confirmed the renaming of the league the Communist League. The former
motto ‘All Men are Brothers’ was replaced by the slogan of proletarian internationalism
‘Workers of All Countries, Unite!’ This slogan, which had first appeared in the draft
rules of the Communist League, became the militant slogan of the international workers’
movement.
“The foundation of the Communist
League—the first international workers’ organization which proclaimed scientific
communism to be its militant banner—marked the beginning of the union of Marxism and
the workers’ movement. Ahead lay the enormous task of implementing the decisions adopted
at the congress, of strengthening the League both ideologically and organizationally and
of increasing its links with worker and democratic organizations.
“On 29 October, 1847, the second
congress of the the Communist League took place again in London, and was attended by
representatives from Germany, Switzerland, France, Belgium, England, Poland and other
countries. It was the first international congress of the proletariat to record in its
decisions the ideas of scientific communism. The Rules of the Communist League, adopted
at the congress, declare the aim of the League to be: the overthrow of the bourgeoisie,
the dictatorship of the proletariat, the destruction of the old bourgeois society based
on class antagonism and the foundation of a new society without classes and without
private property.
“Marx and Engels were asked to
draw up a Manifesto of the Communist Party in order to set clearly and openly
before the world the programme of the Communists. This, the major document of the age,
was written in two months, from December 1847 to January 1848. Reading the Manifesto
gives enormous intellectual satisfaction. Each should discover this for himself,
pondering over each sentence of this famous revolutionary document.”
—The Basics of Marxist-Leninist
Theory, ed. by G. N. Volkov, et al., (Moscow: Progress,1979), pp. 24-25.

“It [the Communist Manifesto] was commissioned by the Second
Congress of the Communist League in November 1847, and it was first published in February
1848.
“This was a stormy period: the period
of the February 1848 Revolution in France and of the climax of the
Chartist Movement in Britain, when the working class
appeared for the first time on the stage of history as an independent force.
“Readers who want to know something
of the background of the Manifesto should read the various prefaces—written by Marx
and Engels to different editions (published with the Manifesto), and should also
turn to Engels’ History of the Communist League and Marx’s Class Struggles in
France, 1848-50.
“The Manifesto was an
epoch-making document. Up to that time, socialists had been putting forward utopian schemes
(imaginary projects for an ideal society) or were engaging in secret conspiracies, while
the rising working class movement lacked a revolutionary theory. The Manifesto
signified the union of scientific socialism with the mass working-class movement.
“The fundamental ideas of the
Manifesto may be summed up under five main headings:1. The Theory of the Class Struggle
“The history of all societies since
the break-up of the primitive communes has been the history of class struggles.
“In capitalist society a stage has
been reached when the victory of the exploited class, the proletariat, over the ruling
exploiting class, the bourgeoisie, will once and for all emancipate society at large from
all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and class struggles.
“The conception of the working class
struggle set forth in the Manifesto follows from Marx’s materialist conception
of history, the essentials of which are summarized in Engels’ prefaces to the English
edition of 1888 and to the German edition of 1883.2. The Development of Capitalist Society
“Capitalism itself developed out of
feudalism, and the capitalist class is itself the product of a long course of development,
of a series of revolutions in the mode of production and exchange.
“The capitalist class has conquered
exclusive political sway in the modern parliamentary state. In its development, it has
played a most revolutionary role. It has brought into being the great new productive forces
of modern industry. But in creating modern industry it has created its own gravediggers,
the proletariat.3. The Development of the Proletariat
“The growth of the proletariat as a
class is accompanied by the growth of its organization, both economic and political.
“At first the proletariat is incoherent
and scattered. It is originally dragged into the political arena by the bourgeoisie, which
must appeal to the proletariat to help fight the remnants of feudalism. The Manifesto
deals with the stages of political development through which the proletariat becomes
organized into a class, and consequently into a political party, combined against the
bourgeoisie.
“While the proletariat fights against
all relics of feudalism and for the fullest extension of democracy, it leads the struggle
for socialism against the capitalists, a struggle which must culminate in the proletariat
conquering power and becoming itself the ruling class.4. From Socialism to Classless Society
“With power in its hands, the
proletariat makes drastic inroads into the power of the capitalists and into capitalist
property relations.
“From the rule of the proletariat will
come classless society, in which will arise new people, new human relations—‘an association
in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.’5. The Aim of the Communist Party
“The Manifesto contains a
trenchant defense of the aims of Communism, and it exposes various fashionable brands of
‘socialism’ as expressions, not of the working-class standpoint, but of the reactionary
standpoints of other classes—of the decaying aristocracy, the petty-bourgeoisie or the
bourgeoisie itself. The ideas of Communism, on the other hand, are not inventions of any
would-be reformers, but spring from the existing class struggle.
“Communists have no interests apart
from those of the working class as a whole. Their policy is to fight for the immediate
aims of the class, to form an alliance with every movement opposed to the existing social
order, and in the movement of the present always to take care of the future, striving to
unite the class for the overthrow of capitalist class rule and for the conquest of power.”
—Maurice Cornforth, Readers’ Guide
to the Marxist Classics (London: 1952), pp. 6-7.

“The Communist Manifesto of 1847 is an extraordinary document, full of
insights, rich in meanings and bursting with political possibilities. Millions of people
all around the world—peasants, workers, soldiers, intellectuals as well as professionals
of all sorts—have, over the years, been touched and inspired by it.” —David Harvey, in
his introduction to an edition of the Communist Manifesto.

COMMUNIST WORKERS’ PARTY OF GERMANY [Kommunistische Arbeiter Partei Deutschlands (KAPD)]
A semi-anarchist “left” opportunist party which split off in April 1920 from the Communist
Party of Germany (KPD), which itself had only recently been founded by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl
Liebknecht and others in the Spartacus League at the
very beginning of 1919. The KAPD called for immediate revolution and the establishment of
its own rather dubious understanding of the
dictatorship of the proletariat; rejected
all participation in elections under any circumstances; rejected any political work within
reformist trade unions; belittled the need for extensive preparatory political educational
work among the masses to create the conditions for revolution; opposed the whole idea of
democratic centralism; and opposed the need for the
working class to be led by a single proletarian revolutionary party.
Some of the support for the KAPD came because
of a few mishaps, missteps and confusions within the KPD in its first year. The KAPD was
fairly strong in Berlin, Hamburg and a few other cities and regions, and it is claimed that
at the end of 1921 it had 43,000 members. After 1921 the KAPD rapidly lost members and
influence and the KPD had a vastly larger membership and mass following. The KAPD was strongly
under the sway of “council communists” such as the Dutch writers Anton Pannekoek and Herman
Gorter who had also founded the much less significant Communist Workers’ Party of the
Netherlands (KAPN).
Although the participation of the KAPD (and
its members before the KAPD was actually formed) in the Communist International and its
Congresses was tolerated by the Leninist forces and other Communist parties, they were heavily
criticized. Lenin’s major 1920 pamphlet,
‘Left’-Wing Communism—An Infantile Disorder,
which he prepared just in time for the Second Congress of the Comintern, was directed against
the KAPD and similar trends.
For this reason the KAPD and similar groups
broke with the Communist International in 1921. They then worked toward establishing an
alternative international organization, to be called the “Communist Workers International”.
However, in 1922 the KAPD split into two independent groups over whether the time was ripe to
do this. Both of them kept the same name, but were referred to as the KAPD Essen Faction and
the KAPD Berlin Faction, and it was the Essen group which joined the Communist Workers
International.
Although the KAPD party (or parties)
continued to exist in a tiny way until at least 1927, they and their “International” became
of less and less significance, and soon disappeared entirely.

“On the other hand, the difficult position of the Communist Party of
Germany is aggravated at the present moment by the break-away of the not very good
Communists on the left (the Communist Workers’ Party of Germany, K.A.P.D.) and on the
right (Paul Levi and his little magazine Unser Weg or Sowjet).
“Beginning with the Second
Congress of the Communist International, the ‘Leftists’ or ‘K.A.P.-ists’ have received
sufficient warning from us in the international arena. Until sufficiently strong,
experienced and influential Communist Parties have been built, at least in the
principal countries, the participation of semi-anarchist elements in our international
congresses has to be tolerated, and is to some extent even useful. It is useful
insofar as these elements serve as a clear ‘warning’ to inexperienced Communists, and
also insofar as they themselves are still capable of learning. All over the world,
anarchism has been splitting up—not since yesterday, but since the beginning of the
imperialist war of 1914-1918—into two trends: one pro-Soviet, and the other
anti-Soviet; one in favor of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the other
against it. We must allow this process of disintegration among the anarchists to go
on and come to a head. Hardly anyone in Western Europe has experienced anything like
a big revolution. There, the experience of great revolutions has been almost entirely
forgotten, and the transition from the desire to be revolutionary and from talk (and
resolutions) about revolution to real revolutionary work is very difficult, painful
and slow.
“It goes without saying, however,
that the semi-anarchist elements can and should be tolerated only within certain
limits. In Germany, we tolerated them for quite a long time. The Third Congress of the
Communist International faced them with an ultimatum and fixed a definite time limit.
If they have now voluntarily resigned from the Communist International, all the
better. Firstly, they have saved us the trouble of expelling them. Secondly, it has
now been demonstrated most conclusively and most graphically, and proved with precise
facts to all vacillating workers, and all those who have been inclined towards
anarchism because of their hatred for the opportunism of the old Social-Democrats,
that the Communist International has been patient, that it has not expelled anarchists
immediately and unconditionally, and that it has given them an attentive hearing and
helped them to learn.
“We must now pay less attention
to the K.A.P.-ists. By polemising with them we merely give them publicity. They are
too unintelligent; it is wrong to take them seriously; and it is not worth being angry
with them. They have no influence among the masses, and will acquire none, unless we
make mistakes. Let us leave this tiny trend to die a natural death; the workers
themselves will realize that it is worthless. Let us propagate and implement, with
greater effect, the organizational and tactical decisions of the Third Congress of the
Communist International, instead of giving the K.A.P.ists publicity by arguing with
them. The infantile disorder of ‘Leftism’ is passing and will pass away as the
movement grows.”
—Lenin, “A Letter to the German
Communists” (Aug. 14, 1921), LCW 32:514-515.

COMMUNISTS — Aims Of
The long-term goal of communists to is bring about communist
society. However, there are many more immediate tasks which must be carried out for this
to occur, each of them with many sub-tasks and sub-sub-tasks. The communists must:
Organize themselves into a political party;
Connect themselves up closely with the
class struggles of the working class;
Educate the working class on the need
for social revolution and what that means;
Help the working class organize
itself for revolution;
Lead the working class and its allies
in seizing political power;
After this seizure of power, transform
capitalism into the transitional stage of socialism;
Lead the working class in struggling
against any attempts by the old (or any newly developed) bourgeoisie to return to power; and,
Lead the working class in transforming
socialism into communism, where no social classes exist any longer.

“The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all the
other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the
of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.” —Marx &
Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Ch. II: MECW 6:498.

“In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary
movement against the existing social and political order of things.” —Marx & Engels,
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Ch. IV: MECW 6:519.

“The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the
enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the
present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.” —Marx &
Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Ch. IV: MECW 6:518.

COMPATIBILISM
The philosophical view that free will is compatible with
determinism. In other words, the view that although everything
(including each of our own decisions) has definite causes, we are nevertheless still able ourselves
to decide what actions to take. Dialectical materialism supports this compatibilist viewpoint.
Of course, there are normally reasons (either
explicit or implicit, and either important or trivial) which determine what we consciously decide
to do, but far from precluding a free choice, these reasons are what help us decide
what choice to make. Conscious human beings (and also many other animals, for that matter) are
themselves part of the causal chains that lead to the choices that they make. The parts
of the causal chains that are internal to them, and which they are conscious of, are the parts
they have control over, and therefore manifestations of their free will.
The opposite view, incompatibilism, holds
that if determinism is true (i.e., if everything has causes—including each choice we make),
then free will is impossible. But this is a simple-minded or naïve conception of what “free
will” might plausibly be construed as. Philosophical idealists often
subscribe to incompatibilism, because they do not wish to view people’s actions as being determined
by physical causes. On the other hand, naïve materialists
also sometimes subscribe to incompatibilism because they have a simplistic notion of what “free
will” must mean, a notion similar to that of the idealists. Thus these naïve materialists
accept the fact that everything, including each of our own choices, has causes, but falsely
conclude that this means there can be no such thing as free will.

COMPLEMENTARITY (Quantum Mechanics)
A set of related philosophical concepts especially associated with the idealist
Copenhagen Interpretation of
quantum mechanics. On a gross level, complementarity can
simply refer to wave-particle duality in which the
view of entities in the microworld as behaving as waves in some situations complements
the view that these entities behave as particles in other situations. Here the concept of
complementarity can be innocuous, and might only mean that in some experiments and situations
it is useful to view electrons and other subatomic particles as waves instead of
as particles.
However, complementarity usually implies an
idealist philosophical stance, such as the view that microworld entities like electrons are
in fact both waves and particles, or the view that they are “neither” until they are observed
or measured, or the view that electrons and the like actually do not even have any definite
properties at all until they are measured, and so forth. Here is one description of this
conception of complementarity with an unsupported idealist philosophical conclusion at the
end:

“A profound aspect of complementarity is that it not only applies to
measurability or knowability of some property of a physical entity, but more importantly it
applies to the limitations of that physical entity’s very manifestation of the property in
the physical world. All properties of physical entities exist only in pairs, which Bohr
described as complementary or conjugate pairs (which are also Fourier transform pairs).
Physical reality is determined and defined by manifestations of properties which are limited
by trade-offs between these complementary pairs. For example, an electron can manifest a
greater and greater accuracy of its position only in even trade for a complementary loss in
accuracy of manifesting its momentum. This means that there is a limitation on the precision
with which an electron can possess (i.e., manifest) position, since an infinitely precise
position would dictate that its manifested momentum would be infinitely imprecise, or
undefined (i.e., non-manifest or not possessed), which is not possible. The ultimate
limitations in precision of property manifestations are quantified by the
Heisenberg uncertainty principle and
Planck units. Complementarity and Uncertainty dictate that all properties and actions in
the physical world are therefore non-deterministic to some degree.” —From the Wikipedia
article on Complementarity.

This idealist conclusion that “all properties and actions in the physical world are therefore
non-deterministic to some degree” simply doesn’t follow! This is only a limitation on the
formulas of quantum mechanics to determine properties and actions beyond a certain level
of accuracy, not a limitation on the reality or definiteness of reality itself.

“Britannia may have ruled the waves, but when it came ashore for either
formal or informal rule it needed local allies who could serve as intermediaries in
controlling complex, often volatile populations. These ‘subordinate elites’—so essential
to the rise of any empire—can also precipitate its decline if they move into opposition.
With its contradictory motto ‘Imperium et Libertas,’ the British Empire necessarily
became, as the London Times said in 1942, ‘a self-liquidating concern.’ Indeed,
historian Ronald Robinson has famously argued that British imperial rule ended ‘when
colonial rulers had run out of indigenous collaborators,’ with the result that the
‘inversion of collaboration into noncooperation largely determined the timing of
decolonization.’ The support of these local elites sustained the steady expansion of the
British Empire for two hundred years, just as their later opposition assured its rapid
retreat in just twenty more.”
—Alfred W. McCoy, In the Shadows
of the American Century: the Rise and Decline of US Global Power (2017), p. 50. [Of
course McCoy ignores here the central role of mass independence movements within the
British Empire, and thus exaggerates the role of “local elites” (compradors) turning
against the empire. But still there is some secondary validity to this perspective, as
the compradors began to see their national bourgeois opportunities expand by joining up
with, and taking over the leadership of, those mass independence movements. —Ed.]

“The hacking practice [of the United States National
Security Agency] is quite widespread in its own right: one NSA document [leaked by
Edward Snowden] indicates that the agency has succeeded in infecting at least fifty
thousand individual computers with a type of malware called ‘Quantum Insertion.’ ... Using
Snowden documents, the New York Times reported that the NSA has in fact implanted
this particular software ‘in nearly 100,000 computers around the world.’ Although the
malware is usually installed by ‘gaining access to computer networks, the NSA has
increasingly made use of a secret technology that enables it to enter and alter data in
computers even if they are not connected to the Internet.’” —Glenn Greenwald, No Place
to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State (2014), pp. 117-118.

[Speaking of planetary nebulae:] “This temporary limitation—astronomers
knowing where things were in the sky and what they looked like but not what they were
made of—was seized upon by the philosopher Auguste Comte in 1835. Groping for an
example of knowledge permanently beyond human ken—always a dangerous presumption—Comte
declared that while humans might eventually learn the shapes, distances, sizes, and
motions of celestial bodies, ‘never, by any means, will we be able to study their
chemical composition.’
“Comte’s assertion was refuted
just a few years after his death, when spectroscopes were trained on the Sun and stars
by the physicists Joseph Fraunhofer, Gustav Kirchhoff, and Robert Bunsen, revealing
their composition and ushering in the new science of astrophysics.” —Timothy Ferris,
Seeing in the Dark (2002), p. 237. [The Comte quote is from his Cours de
Philosophie Positive (1835).]